The present invention relates to a variable speed secondary pulley and more particularly relates to a torque sensitive secondary pulley especially adapted for use in a snowmobile transmission.
It is a common practice to drive snowmobiles through means of a transmission including variable speed primary and secondary pulleys which are respectively speed and torque sensitive and mounted on parallel transverse drive and driven shafts. These pulleys each include an axially fixed pulley half and an axially shiftable pulley half and in order to maintain proper alignment of the drive belt disposed about the pulleys, the fixed pulley half of one pulley is disposed inboard of the shiftable pulley half while the fixed pulley half of the other pulley is disposed outboard of the shiftable pulley half.
Heretofore, these primary and secondary pulleys have been constructed such that the speed and torque sensing mechanisms thereof are located on the same side of the fixed pulley half that the movable pulley half is located and the prevailing practice has been to mount the primary pulley such that its speed sensing mechanism is outboard and to mount the secondary pulley such that its torque sensing mechanism is inboard. Since other components of the snowmobile such as the engine, gas tank, carburetor etc. are normally located in the same enclosure that houses the pulleys, the proximity of these other components to the torque sensing mechanism often makes it difficult or impossible to service the torque sensing mechanism or to make manual adjustments thereto without first removing the secondary pulley from the driven shaft.
Also, the danger exists that an operator may come into contact with hot engine or exhaust components in attempting to service or adjust an inboard-located torque sensing mechanism.
Further, the components sharing space with the torque sensing mechanism necessarily have to be arranged to accommodate the latter and these arrangements are often not as operationally desirable as the arrangement that could be made in the absence of the necessity to accommodate the torque sensing means.